j2ee_util.rb public release

I just released my first public version of j2ee_util.rb : Simple tool to manage your J2EE archives (war, ear, jar, zip). Not long ago, I had to make quick changes in a web.xml file contained in a WAR file contained in an EAR file. To do that, I had to extract the EAR that extract the WAR then edit the file then repackage everything.

The process is a bit cumbersome and prone to errors. Yet, I never saw a command-line utility that allows one to do that. So I decided to write my own and j2ee_util.rb was born.

With this command line tool I can now type this to edit the web.xml file :

ruby j2ee_util.rb --edit my-application.ear:webapp.war:WEB-INF/web.xml

And when I exit the editor, the file is automatically repackaged in the WAR file which will be repackaged in the EAR file. The tool also only extract the specified files instead of the whole archive.

I plan to add a few features to be able to edit stuff directly from the command-line (like replacing a value in an XML file) without having to fire-off an editor.

If you use the tool and have any comment/idea/issue with it, fell free to leave a comment on this post.